I am writing two (maybe three) releases for AdventureQuest Worlds this summer. Cysero and Beleen are coming back to write special releases too! For this one, Titan Hollow, I wrote a short story about three Titans battle for the tear of a Fairy that turned into an eternal curse. Like the most popular dungeons from Doomwood, this will be a story-crawl adventure with bonus hidden secrets for hard core gamers.
Concept by Dage the Evil
Originally, I wanted to make it a Grimskull dungeon, but for some reason, players hate dying horrific terrible animated deaths over and over again. <_< Not sure why. >_> Really. So instead of animating comical death cutscenes, we will be focusing on heroic acts of how to cleverly get from point A to point B which will provide scores of awesome screenshot worthy moments.
Beware of living dungeons though.... sometimes... they move. O_O
Battle through The Forgotten Tombs this weekend as we continue the saga of Dage the Evil. Members of the Undead Legion guard one of Dage's most treasured artifacts deep inside the tomb, and Laken's Seraphic Paladins will do anything to possess it - the fate of the Dark Shard depends on YOU!
Battle to reach the Dark Shard before the Seraphic Paladins
Find Nulgath’s Chaotic Fiend Rares shop in your game menu
Find the Golden Cheezburger in Cleric Joy’s Battleon shop until Monday, May 11th
Don’t just be Epic, be Legendary! Level 40 is just the beginning. This Friday, Legendary EpicDuelists will have access to 4 new Legendary Stat categories, a new evolving Legendary Achievement, and an arsenal of new Legendary gear Titan’s Peak!
We’re adding a new Underdog Core balancing mechanic to help lower level players have a fighting chance against super-powerful opponents.
Want to learn about the top-secret technology that is essential for game development? Learn about this amazing invention, and how it applies to the development process of BioBeasts in Titan’s latest Design Notes post!
Every year, for the past twenty years, on a special day Yulgar has brought a bouquet of flowers to the Falconreach pet shop; first for his girlfriend, then for his wife, then… for a memory. This week, join Yulgar and his daughter, Aria, for the first half of our Mother's Day quest event and listen in as he retells her favorite childhood story about Yulgar’s First Date!
Taking a screenshot may seem like pretty simple stuff once you learn how to do it but we all hard to learn sometime.
Earlier this week Artix and I decided to spend a little time in AQW talking to you guys and it seemed to both of us that a lot of you had no idea how to take a screenshot and capture the moment you met your all-time very, very, VERY favorite AE Dev...
...Or Artix.
We decided to make a quick video explaining some fairly fast and easy methods, namely LightShot and the Snipping Tool. You can watch the video here.
We were amazed by how many people started using our methods and thaking us for teaching them how to do this, so we're putting it here for anyone else who might want to learn how to take screenies of their favorite gaming moments.
There are other methods, like just hitting the PRT SC (Print Screen) key on your keyboard which captures your whole display and Pasting into a new file in a basic art program like Paint, but using the Snipping tool is faster and using Lightshot is even faster still and also great for storing and sharing your files with your friends. And it's all FREE!
Life is hard on the Steppes. General Kyron knows this better than anyone. That’s why he did it, right? Robbing caravans, holding up travelers, demanding tolls that didn’t exist. One time Bandit Chieftain Kyron did what he had to in order to ensure the survival of his troupe. But that’s all over and done with. But there’s a problem. Recently, reports of bandit activity have had Kyron nervous. With the war and the plague, he cannot afford any distractions. It is up to you to help Kyron put down his former comrades, and escape the shackles of his troubled past.
Legend Only Firestorm Islands release: Brimstone Steppes
Find out why the Bandits have returned to the Heath, and what that means for the rest of the Firestorm Islands!
Dark Carnival: Friday the 13th / Lucky Day Crossover
Boost your real-life LUK stat this weekend, because the Dark Carnival is in town, and you're going to need every four-leaf clover, horseshoe, and rabbits foot you've got! Voltaire and Zazul are here to make sure you "win" all the prizes you deserve... including some rare, Friday the 13th / Lucky day crossover gear!
Play through all our Dark Carnival minigames, including this year’s newest: Punt Zorbak
Accept Zazul and Voltaire’s quests for rare and very creepy Dark Carnival gear
Legends can preview the new Unlucky Leperchaun Class
A double Class Points Boost on ALL servers, plus an extra XP boost on Legend servers
Check out Dage’s Dark Vampire and Nulgath’s Necromancer Fiend rares shop
Battle through Nulgath’s Shifting Planes cavern as Dage the Evil in the final tests to earn his Mark of Mastery and became one of Lore’s most feared Necromancers. Take down Nulgath’s most loyal minions to prove that you are worthy of leading the Undead Legion… but be wary, because Nulgath the ArchFiend is deadly, and he will exploit any angle in order to stop his apprentice from ascending!
Battle through Nulgath’s shifting planes in /darkfortress
Farm for gear from Wilhelm Vorkrieg, Dage’s oldest friend, and see the new rare gear in his shop
Check out the new gear in Dage’s House Birthday shop
Defeat the mystery boss in this weekend’s release for exclusive, seasonal-rare house items
With the Firestorm Onslaught swarming into the area around Embersea, your blade and skill are needed for an escort mission to Pyrewatch Peak this Friday. When all communication with the tower guards is lost, ArchPyromancer Pyralis must investigate the disappearance of Embersea's latest shipment of medicine, and discover why they've gone silent!
Battle the Firestorm Onslaught as they invade Pyrewatch Peak, and discover the location of their next attack!
Dage the Evil’s birthday is Monday, but the first of his birthday gear arrives tonight!
Buy any AC package of $10 USD or more to unlock the Fyreborn TigerMaster mount armor set!
4 new vicious items forged in the underworld by Dage the Evil himself!
Check Dage's EpicDuel NPC in the Wasteland Minetower for these items and a fresh restock of his classic, coveted limited-quantity items.
Balance Update
EpicDuel will be receiving another balance overhaul, introducing an Underdog passive core to assist lower level players in having a fighting chance against supremely powerful opponents.
Every year, on the 1st day of the new year, I get up early, and come here to the lab. Everyone else finally has a day off. So I am alone here with my thoughts-- and those thoughts are focused on all of the game things we will build together in 2015. I strongly believe this year is going to be our best-- and equally our hardest. It would be safe to say the past two years were training for what we are going to do this year. Because this year Project: Omni (our ambitious and challenging plan to take our games to all devices) will finally spread its wings like phoenix, renewing the life of our existing and new games. Instead of trying rattle off the giant shotgun blast list of goals... I am just going to say the #1 thing on the list that is written on the paper in my hand-- This is the year, we launch AdventureQuest 3D (aka AQW3D). Can I count on you to join us and help make this crazy new game? Battle on!
Congratulations everyone! You already got Dragons to 10,000 players on Android and it has hit #34... nope, make that #32 Top New Free Game! Keep up the great wok spreading the word about AdventureQuest Dragons! (The Apple iPhone & iPad version is off to an amazing start too!)
We are working on AdventureQuest Dragons bugs for Android and Apple. Especially the one that crashes specific phones right after the intro video plays! Just as Sun Tsu wrote in the Art of War "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy," I would like to humbly declare "No amount of testing can prepare a new video game for the first install by thousands of real players." We believe we have isolated the issue, but we need help from people with those specific devices.
Android "Crash after video plays" Bug
So... this one was really hard to figure out since it is so inconsistant. Very specific combinations of Android OS versions and GPU hardware do not know how to handle the texture compression that Dragons is using (Which is called ETC2). Normally, this would be ok. this is because your phone will simply uncompress it and just use the raw image data. Which would be great... except the raw size of these giant textures are too huuuuuuuge... so CRAAAAAAAAASH. It would sort of like making a cup of coffee for your friend, but he tells you that his mouth is incompatable with the coffee cup you are holding... so you try shoving the entire pot of coffee in his mouth instead.
We have two solutions, but we need a device here at the lab to test on. Specifically we are looking for older phones running Android OS 4.2 or lower, with a Qualcomm Adreno 203 GPU chipset.
Samsung GT-I8262
Samsung GT-I9082
If you have one of these devices and want to help. Please let us know in the comment section below. In the mean time, I am calling everyone I know.
Apple Version Update
We ran into a pretty critical problem. Our "redeem code" functionality is not allowed on Apple devices. This rule is in place primarily to stop evil developers who are trying to sneakily circumvent Apple's App Store Purchase process. Which makes sense. I am not sure if you noticed, but each major techological ecosystem is now in it's own sandbox. What I mean is... Apple, Google, Facebook, and other major tech companies have created very strict borders around their digital territories. If you are on an apple device, you must pay through apple. Same for Google devices. Same for Facebook. We understood why this is the way it is-- and as of the BattleGems video game project respectfully implimented a different system depending on where you played.
The redeem code, however, was something that never even crossed our minds as being a problem. It was put in place for two reasons. First to allow player support to help players-- which is extra challenging since this other than the upcoming leaderboards this is a single player game that lives purely on your device. Secondly, to give away redeem codes in promotions and merch to draw more players to Dragons. So, the redeem code feature being a release-stopping issue puts me in an absolutely terrible position. To solve it, I have no other choice but to remove the redeem code feature from the Apple version. (otherwise it will not be allowed to go live.) This feature will still be available on the Android and upcoming Web version.
The Apple App store will be closing next Monday-- meaning this is our last shot. As you can imagine, we are desperately (and quite panickly) doing everything in our power to have Dragons released before then. Please cross your fingers, toes, talons, and any other lucky things that can be crossed in an somewhat awkward and highly amusing manner for us!
Thank you for being so patient and understanding as we battle through these bugs. Also thank you to everyone who gave us 5-stars and wrote such enthusiastic and kind comments. Your comments make working on this through the weekend and nights so worth it.